Parisian Shower

I am watching a program showcasing movies that will premier in France this week. One called La Moustache seems particularly interesting. From what I gather, a man shaves his mustache, and then goes crazy because his wife and friends do not notice that he shaved his mustache. They, in fact, claim he never had a mustache. Everything is seen from his (unreliable?) point of view. In the trailer, there's this haunting bit: the man is broken, crouched in the shower, clutching a fistful of hair, then letting it slip down the drain. Intense.

The mustache thing is supposed to be a trope; I get that. By loss of mustache the director looks to convey loss of sanity. But is he also looking to convey Tom Selleck? Porn stars? They keep replaying one somber line, “What would you say, if I were to shave the mustache?” Oh, this movie is going to be good.

********Confession: I just started showering at the gym last week after more than a year as a non-showerer. Lugging my cleansing gear is definitely annoying, but I was scaring too many Parisians before, tromping to and fro in my nylon shorts and sweaty ponytail. I needed to change. Literally. It's not something I'm particularly proud of, my non-showering ways, but there you have it.

********A French girl sauces onto the bike in front of me at the gym today. She is very svelte and alluring, but I am worried about her outfit. Striped brown socks, Petit Bateau camisole, droopy cotton shorts. It kills me how these French girls will arrive in something perfect, like ballet flats and a trench coat, and then change into this. She looks like she is going to a twelve-year-old's slumber party.

Later, a man gets onto the treadmill in a polo shirt and shorts with, belt loops? He looks eerily like my father. Similar sartorial philosophies, for sportswear at least--untroubled by the advancements in moisture-wicking technology or elastic, but preferring to remain very 1970's tennis player. He's adorable. You just want to slip on some aviators and roller-skate with him to Simon and Garfunkel.

********I am done working out. I enter the stretching room. You must say bonjour to everyone there. The French are way into the salutations. But the room feels like a sauna, which makes me wish they were a little more into air conditioning.

********When I enter the locker room later, I see a sign saying traveaux (construction) from June 31-August 15. During which, we may shower in "douches provisoires.” Umm, there they are. Simply freestanding boxes of glass, erected smack in the center of the room. It's like showering in a snow globe. Modesty? I am ruined.

"I can't believe this," I say, to no one in particular. "Oh, me neither!" says an older woman beside me. Then, she shrugs and throws off her towel. That was more than a little alarming.

I enter the shower. Apocalypse. Everyone can see me through this glass and I am going to die. Once an American prude, always an American prude! I think about the sad, crazy mustache man, so alone and misunderstood. I keep my bare backside pointed at the locker room, but focus on not brushing it against the glass.

Later, as I'm getting dressed, a girl who is entering the shower inquires as to the water. “Glaciale,” I say. It is true; it was freezing. "Good for the circulation! Keeps you young!" the older lady butts in. Then she swings her gym bag onto her shoulder, flips open a packet of cigarettes and pulls out her lighter.

********I say au revoir to each person at the front desk, (see above: the importance of salutations), and head onto the sunny street in a Cacharel summery top and linen pants, feeling better. Fashion never hurts. I was hoping to get some sort of reaction from the gym staff, the first time they saw me in real clothes. In my fantasy, they would have been blinded by my unassuming sophistication. Maybe they wouldn't recognize me. No one said a word. At the bus stop, there's an advertisement for La Moustache. I feel more sympathy for this guy by the minute.

********Mustaches are like babies, once you have them on the brain, you start seeing them everywhere. On the bus ride home, a man climbs on with...actually, he's just generally unshaven. But if you squint, he sort of looks like Johnny Depp, incidentally, one of the rare, modern-day men who can naturally rock the mustache look. Depp is also, (double incidentally!), a Parisian. Coincidence? As this doppelganger heads to the back of the bus, all I know is, I'm happy not to be wearing my gym clothes.

Yes, when I read the French reviews, I learned that it was based upon a novel. Sorry to seem insensitive to a potentially nice film that I haven't seen, but I just couldn't get the trailer out of my head. Was the novel ever translated into English? I'll be curious to see how the film fares. I can't imagine it having success in the US.

Well, you must definitely be going to a nicer gym than mine. Our locker room is just a tiny bit larger than a phone booth, and you can imagine that the rest of the gym follows the same philosophy. I showered there just once, then got annoyed (luckily I live within 2 minutes walk).

The Moustache was translated by Pantheon when it came out and it's now published in a Emanuel Carrere omnibus edition with Class Trip by Henry Holt. The English translation is very good and it is my favorite of Carrere's work.
Very interesting. Usually writers adapting their own work into film is a bad sign. I don't know of any successful examples, much less actual examples outside the Tom Clancy/Michael Chrichton ones. I wasn't crazy about the film adaptations of The Adversary or Class Trip.

Argg gym outfit. I am struggling too... tried a couple of Nike stuff that made me look like Veronique et Davina (anyone remembers?)... Still in search of something both stylish and sports-like though. Any idea ?

And don't forget the women who go to work out in a full face of makeup??

why?

I took J once to a gym in the states and he walked right looking pretty normal on top, a plain t-shirt and shorts (borrowed from my brother) and his normal looking nikes but it was the argyle socks that screamed "I'm not american".

From my limited/growing understanding of french culture and manners, I am guessing that no one at the gym mentioned how great you looked, BECAUSE if they did, it would imply that they also noticed how you looked sans douche. And that would be more rude than the lack of compliment.

love the piece! i saw the preview and have to admit thought the film might be terrible - but i like your tak on it.
and...backtrack to your coming out photo - tres belle...and you are even cuter in person.
us-party-soon-Le Baron (went again last night) VIP treatment darling. can't wait to take you. xx

Dear Coquette,
After several hours spent on the Web looking for a "[...] blog of a foreign student living in France" (an exercise for my english class, also called “count how many person publish their dog pics on the web”), I discovered your adventures. And I must say that your vision of France, “fresh and funny”, is also terribly accurate… and wonderfully open-minded! What you’re saying here is definitely (so) true (except one/two bad things of course)…
I just wanted to say you good luck for your future adventures, and hope I might meet you one day at your gym, or, even better, seating at “Hotel Costes” ;)
Jean, from Grenoble

When I first started working out at my gym I was shy about showering in the cummunal shower room in the women's locker room. But after the first few times you become totally used to it and it's no longer a big deal. After a while it seems silly to be embarrassed about other females seeing you nude! For starters their not looking anyway. And even if they did glance over at you for a second, so-what, were all women with the same body parts!

I agree with the woman above who said that it's not so bad showering in the women's locker room!

I'm not an exibitionist, and I'm not a lesbian either, but in a way it's kind of nice to be able to be openly nude in front of other women in a locker room when there's nothing sexual about it in the least.

It's nice to be able to not worry about having to be covered up at all times, because it's just females, and it's a locker room and it's completely normal to be nude in a locker room.

i avoid showering at the gym but had gone swimming so now had no choice. not to not get to graphic but the french girl next to me was completely how-you-say au naturale and i was COMPLETELY not! but it was a true shocker to me to see someone so au naturale in 2006. even when you don't want to look, sometimes you just can't avoid it!

hello
I am a Parisian living in NYC. are you still in Paris? Today I have made the decision to live vicariously my former parisian life through your musings. I lived in Montparnasse, just across the Luco from you. I have been in the States for 20 years, still do not understand the American. I have a working knowledge of America as a country, and what a great country, in concept. Its people, however, it's another story. I only truly feel "sur la meme page" with a compatriot. Etrange, n'est-ce pas,after two decades? qu'en pensez-vous chere amie?

Oddly enough, the men's showers at my gym are under similar construction. In another coincidence, Johnny Depp goes to the same gym as well, but he doesn't seem to have any modesty issues with those glass showers.
So I don't think it's an American thing.

A girlfriend of mine read your blog and told me I have to fill you in on my celebrity gym/locker room experiances, so here goes.

I live in L.A and there are probably about 6 to 7 different female celebrities or semi-celebrities who are members at the gym that I go to. Anyway, at one time or another I've pretty much seen all of the nude in the locker room, although in all honesty I don't usually go out of my way to look!

The 3 most well known of them are Courtney Thorne-Smith from According To Jim, Cobie Smulders from the show How I Met Your Mother, and Parminder Nagra from ER. The others aren't very well known overal.

I don't know if it's because they have had to take off their clothes a lot for certain acting roles or what, but they are some of the most comfortable nude people you will ever see.

Pretty much everything they do when their in the locker room is done totally in the nude. Blowdrying hair, Weighing themselves on the scale or doing makeup, it's all done 100% in the nude.

It is true that the French are way too much into salutations. When on-site consulting at French companies I keep wondering about the time wasted by every person in the morning as they have to kiss everyone of the opposite sex present in the room.

On the second day when it is not my first time there anymore, I am also expected to "faire la bise" to every woman. Thank God I don't waork in finance where they have huge open plan offices.

Dear Coquette,
My friend just sent me a link to your blog and may I say how wonderful it is. I am moving to Paris myself in April and have been googling for days - looking for a gym- though unsuccessfully. Your news here makes me realise there are gyms in Paris, despite the apparent lack of web presence and that they are not the same as my Australian expectations. Though I do look forward to the adventure.
Regards

Dear Coquette,
My friend just sent me a link to your blog and may I say how wonderful it is. I am moving to Paris myself in April and have been googling for days - looking for a gym- though unsuccessfully. Your news here makes me realise there are gyms in Paris, despite the apparent lack of web presence and that they are not the same as my Australian expectations. Though I do look forward to the adventure.
Regards